Google +1’s Confirmed To Have “No Direct” Impact On Rankings

Ever since Google announced their Google Plus social platform, questions have been raised over whether the social metric embedded within the network, Google +1's, would have a benefit to specific pages within a website in terms of being able to rank higher than their competitors but today Google have finally answered the question that so many of us wanted to know…

Q. Do Google +1's affect a website ranking?

A. "Not really a direct effect" – Matt Cutts, Google Web Spam

The question which was aired live yesterday within the latest instalment of ‘Power Searching With Google Hangout on Air #2' was asked to the head of Google Web Spam team, Matt Cutts following the question being sent into the live feed show by a tuned in website owner.

On the question being asked to Cutts, he seemed to indicate that social metrics such as Google +1's could become a metric that they would look to consider in future years but at the moment he revealed that there is no direct link between the two, instead jumping ahead to talk about the Google Authorship feature which was announced not so long ago.

While speaking about Google Authorship, Cutts seems to show the mentality that Google have over the feature, explaining that some users might link the page to authority due to the production of the image of the author, however this seemed to be more aimed towards the fact that he thought that including an image such as that seen on the search engine rankings page for sites that have this feature enabled, could experience a better click through rate than they previously did.

Whether this means that Google are now looking out for authorship to be included on authority sites is still to be seen but following the news that having Google Authorship enabled on your site would increase the number of results that any author has within the results pages, surely they are a great way to increase your visibility.

Finally a conclusion can be put under the debate as to whether we should be looking towards social elements for the moment but definitely check out the video as it seems to me that Google will be looking for ways to incorporate this metric into their ranking factors in the non too distant future.

Alex Graves

Developing his SEO knowledge based on a 'quality over quantity' thesis, Alex believes that careful research and link acquisition is vital when working on projects, ensuring that each and every step taken is a positive one.

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5 Comments

Also, it’s interesting to observe +1 annotations for certain queries while not logged in. Take [things to do in new york] as an example; I see “127 people in New York, NY +1’d this”. I’m in New York as I check this, but I see it for other queries too hence are these tests? Who knows. Either that or +1 becomes an extension of local search as well and personalized, and ‘about to be’ video with the impending Plus/YouTube merge. I have said too much…

I’ll still be investing in +1’s, you?

Carps - http://www.trusteddealers.co.uk

They wheel out Matt Cutts for everything don’t they? He’s ostensibly head of web spam – what’s he doing commenting on this… where are the search/Google+ teams?

Anyway, I’m pleased because it gives me something I don’t have to worry about 😉

Rafael Deramas - http://rafaelderamas.com/

If Google+ will have a direct influence over rankings, it would be the end for SEO, and probably Facebook. Let’s face it, bloggers, SEOs, and internet marketers occupy a majority of the social media space. If Google decides to make this move in the near future, it would make Google+ the most preferred social network among all.

Kent - http://humanwebsite.com.my

Does that mean that Google+ has INDIRECT INFLUENCE then?

Will - http://www.webmarketers.com.au

I believe we havnt even seen the start of what Google will do with the information it gets from Google+.. but you can’t ignore the fact that the rankings become different when people are loged into their Google account.. and a lot of people have Google accounts!!!

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